Music breaking barriers

Monthly Archives: May 2017

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French avant-gardist black metal project Les chants du hasard release their debut, self-titled album on June twenty-third. We’ve already reviewed the amazing and forward-thinking album right here, but, today, we team up with the band and I, Voidhanger Records to bring you a new song in anticipation of the release.

‘Chant I: Le théâtre’ is the album’s first track, and it puts all on the table. You’ve got the whole orchestra with their melancholic and slightly dissonant beauty, the gravelly and pitiless vocals, as of a decadent opera, sing hopeless lyrics in this devoid of any light chant. It … Read more

Cybergrindr is a probably-solo project from British Columbia. It is one of the few bands whose name actually reflects the genre they play… and they do it very right! Cybergrindr’s cybergrind is far from mundane. They see the opportunities the genre brings them, and they take them. For example, they profit from the obviously-programmed drums to go beyond what would be realistic: on ‘The Overseer Has Come Online’, they use drum hits – seemingly kick drums – at superhuman speeds to create what we interpret as musical notes, with pitch and length. And even though it’s the only place where … Read more

The Italian science-fiction atmospheric black metal trio Progenie terrestre pura will soon release their second full-length album, oltreLuna. With this opus, we see them at their most diversified and confident. Between the blast beats and the atmospheric keyboard pads, you’ll find elements of folk music like the flute on ‘[.Pianeta.Zero.]’, electronic dance music like the dubstep part of ‘[.oltreLuna.]’, and industrial metal. All these make for a really interesting and varied experience, something that is cruelly lacking in the atmospheric black metal landscape. The instruments on there sound very angular, almost mechanical, synthetic, but embedded in all that futuristic, … Read more

Sheen Marina describe themselves as a ‘surf-noise’ band. However, I think that’s doing their music a disfavour, as it cannot be completely covered by this umbrella term. In their upcoming album, Travel Lightly, there are also strong flavours of math rock and avant-prog, which can hardly be foreseen with the ‘surf noise’ label. This thirty-minute album consists of nine tracks with varying degrees of interbreeding with the other aforementioned genres, all over a pretty clear, reverb-drenched surf rock basis. ‘WYSC’, for example, is almost a straight-up math rock song, with complex rhythms and odd time signatures, while ‘Nose Ring … Read more

Out on July twenty-eighth, Meditations on Insignificance is the latest experiment by noise metal artists The Blight. This full-length release explores the Lovecraftian themes of cosmic insignificance and the nihilistic views that nothing we will ever do will matter the slightest bit in the end. Their approach to music consists of improvised noise layered with atmospheric pads and supported by an impressive display of drumming skills, not too far from an actual drum solo. Thematically, the album goes from small scale, with ‘Self’, to a gigantic one, with ‘Galaxy’. Themes that are exploited without uttering a single word – … Read more

French quartet Asylon Terra recently released Blind Man Running, their first, full-length release. Between contemporary jazz, ambient music, and progressive rock, the compositions of Pierre Lordet, clarinetist of the group, take shape on this entrancing album. Anne Quillier, about whose sextet we already wrote, takes seat behind the omnipresent keyboards – the Rhodes and Moog -, while Lucas Hercberg takes bass duties, and Clément Black takes care of the drums. The whole is an astounding result. Blind Man Running will take your breath away. The vast soundscapes played here will submerge you, and even the harder-hitting compositions – … Read more

Edit Peptide is the latest achievement of American eclectic and hectic progressive act Bubblemath. Out on May twenty-sixth through Cuneiform Records, this set of intellectual compositions might burn a fuse or two in your brain. That’s prog done right, and giving back the literal epithet of the genre. Complicated multi-part harmonies and melodies go over compound and conflicting rhythmics with an ease only before seen with King Crimson, and some new bands from that truly-prog resurgence movement. However difficult they are to play and however deeply they have been written, the songs are incredibly accessible and don’t feel like … Read more